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Further Reading

Of all the announcements at this weekend's PlayStation Experience fan event, one of the biggest was confirmation that Capcom's Street Fighter Vwill be an untimed exclusive on PlayStation 4 and PC that will include cross-platform play between the two versions. Microsoft Head of Xbox Phil Spencer doesn't seem publicly broken up about Microsoft missing out on the game, though. On Twitter over the weekend, he reacted to the situation by simply saying, "Business deals happen. We won't do all of them."

"When we have a 1st party franchise in a genre I'd rather invest in ours," Spencer continued, responding to a fan asking for his thoughts on the exclusivity announcement. That's likely a reference to Killer Instinct, the Microsoft-owned fighting game franchise that doesn't quite have the same cultural or gaming cachet as a brand like Street Fighter, but it's an Xbox exclusive for the foreseeable future.

"There is a mix of deals to do but making sure we own IP Xbox gamers love is critical, IMO," Spencer tweeted in a follow-up. He continued to elaborate in multiplefollow-up tweets. "I'd love it if Xbox fans could play all the games, but business just makes some deals happen. It's all part of competition... I appreciate the competition, they do good work. I just focus on us and like you say I think that makes us better."

Further Reading

Speaking more generally about fan conventions like the inaugural PlayStation Experience, Spencer responded positively about the potential of bringing back the X0 events that served as public gatherings and game unveiling opportunities for European Xbox fans from 2001 through 2006 (there was also a single US event in 2010). "Maybe hav[ing] our own dedicated event would be better, but having a great E3 and Gamescom is important," Spencer tweeted.

Earlier this year at Gamescom, Microsoft announced that Square Enix's 2015 Tomb Raider title would be a timed exclusive on Xbox One. "People ask me how much did we pay. There are certain things I'm just not going to talk about because it's a business deal between us and them," Spencer said of that deal at the time.

In response to the Tomb Raider deal, Sony official felt largely like Spencer does now. PlayStation Europe President Jim Ryan told CVG, "Do we feel the need to go out and buy outright exclusivity? Probably not."

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Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl